


Portal/Borderlands: The Girlfriend

by iammemyself



Category: Borderlands (Video Games), Portal (Video Game)
Genre: Developing Friendships, Developing Relationship, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-24
Updated: 2019-08-06
Packaged: 2019-08-07 01:27:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16398785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iammemyself/pseuds/iammemyself
Summary: Having a girlfriend is REALLY hard, but it’s also way more awesome than he’d thought it was going to be.





	1. Part One

**Portal/Borderlands: The Girlfriend**

**Characters: Claptrap, GLaDOS [ClapDOS]**

**Synopsis: Having a girlfriend is REALLY hard, but it’s also way more awesome than he’d thought it was going to be.**

 

 

**Part One.**

**Synopsis: He wants to touch her _so bad_ but she is just not having it.**

 

So, Claptrap had this girlfriend.

That, right there, was a miracle in and of itself.  He was still a little confused about that. 

One of the things about his girlfriend – whew.  Still getting used to saying that, even to himself – was that she was _super hot_.  Now, Claptrap thought that about pretty much _every_ girl he saw, but when he said _this_ girl was the _prettiest_ girl he’d ever seen, he actually did mean it.  She had a _lot_ of things in her favour there.  For one thing, there was only one of her.  Back on Pandora, there were like a _million_ of each kind of robot.  Line up a whole bunch of a product line and it’d be _real_ hard to tell them apart from each other.  Which they got really insulted about, and that was _super_ unfair.  But none of that with GLaDOS.  Nah, there was just the one of her.  She also seemed to have been designed _completely_ with the aesthetic in mind, which was a nice change from the constant blocky chassis from back home.  She was just one big set of curves.  It was very sexy.

The other _other_ thing about her was that she was… well, she was big.  Claptrap had seen big robots before, obviously, but they were _usually_ only that size because they had so many guns on ‘em.  GLaDOS did not have _any_ guns on her; she just happened to be a large robot.  Which was great!  He was _all_ about that.  There was just _one_ problem.  

What was the _point_ of having a giant, super hot robot for a girlfriend if you weren’t allowed to _touch_ her?

Ohhh, she’d made that _super_ clear.  Because he’d asked before, like, lots of times, and he was gonna ask lots of times more.  That made him look like a huge jerk, and he _knew_ that, but thing was some girls really did just wanna be convinced about stuff.  And he always got the impression GLaDOS was just _waiting_ for him to say the right thing.  Just _waiting_ for him to come up with that _thing_ that would change her mind.  It was kinda like a test, and if there was _one_ thing he knew about her _for sure_ it was that she _really_ liked her tests.  Besides.  She never got _angry_ with him for asking.  She would just tell him the answer was no and then he’d give up until the next time he thought of some new way to put it.  He was running out of ideas on that front, though.

GLaDOS was very into working pretty much _constantly_ (she probably even did it while she was asleep) but she didn’t seem to have a problem with him hanging out with her and just talking.  She didn’t _answer_ him that often, but he knew she was _listening_ , and that was good enough for him!  One day he was behind her and just looking up at where she was plugged into the ceiling and wondering what life was like when you couldn’t so much as leave the room.  She _seemed_ content with it, but with her you just never really knew.

“You ever wonder what you’re doing up there?” he asked, not really expecting an answer, but she said,

“It was expensive to build both robots and computers back then.”

Claptrap tapped one hand under his optic.  “Nah.  That _can’t_ be it.”

She actually turned around to look at him.  “What is it, then.”

Well, crap.  He hadn’t thought that through yet!  “Did uh… did Aperture ever actually try to _sell_ any of the stuff you’re testing?”

“We used to.  But that was stopped a while before I was made.”

“Why?”

She sort of shrugged.  “Everything that comes out of here is, well… deadly.  Humans frown on that sort of thing.”

That still made zero sense to him, since back on Pandora the general idea was if it wasn’t deadly, it wasn’t worth thinking about.  “ _Everything_ you make here is deadly?”

“Pretty much.”

“And they… expected you _not_ to be?”

She laughed, which always meant he was doing _very_ well.  “They did and they were very, _very_ wrong.”

“Okay, so, _normally_ when a company decides to build a robot they kinda, y’know, intend on mass producing ‘em.  Were they ever gonna…”  Geez.  It felt so _wrong_ to think of her like that.  She was _way_ too special to be part of a _product line_.  “Y’know.  _Market_ you?”

“They wanted to.  But they never had any idea what to _do_ with any of the things they created.  Aperture’s main goal throughout its history was to sell things to the American military.  And you might imagine that the American military would have _loved_ to have acquired such an advanced AI as myself.  I could have run the entire thing all on my own.”  She looked back at the monitor she’d been doing whatever on.  He had no idea and hadn’t felt like asking.  But military AI was something Claptrap _did_ understand.  The principle, anyway. 

“So… why are you still here?”

“Because the military was looking to fill a contract for an innovation that would prevent gasoline from freezing.  The engineers, in their inimitable wisdom, decided to tell the military that was all I had the ability to do.”

“Wait.  What?”  She’d totally lost him now.  “Are you telling me the guys who worked here had a living genius supercomputer on their hands and they just went around trying to shoehorn you into random military contracts?”

“That was where Black Mesa was getting all their funding from.  So yes.  It was really less in the interest of finding something intelligent to do with me, and more about fighting over the available contracts.”

“So _that’s_ why you’re up there,” Claptrap said.

“What?”  She turned back around to look at him, and he reversed a little so she didn’t have to curl up so much to do it.

“Well, what else do you do with something you don’t know what to do with that you kinda regret owning?  You put it somewhere you don’t gotta look at it and nobody will ever touch it.”

She didn’t say anything, just kept _staring_ at him, and it was really making him kinda uncomfy.  He lifted up his hands a little helplessly.  “Maybe it’s different here, but back on Pandora, if you’re making AI or a robot you market the _hell_ out of it.  They’re expensive!  They require a lotta manpower!  And that’s on _top_ of the years and years of bug fixes and updates.  _Nobody_ builds a robot without knowing _exactly_ how they’re gonna market it.  Unless they’re planning on scrapping it and starting over, that is.”

“Well,” GLaDOS said, looking away, and he _might’ve_ been mistaken but she sounded a little _distant_ suddenly, “it seems you found the exception.”

Exception?  What except – ohhhhhh.  Yikes.  Somehow in the midst of his explanation he’d forgotten they were talking about _her_.  Oh man.  He had to fix this. 

“Hey, it’s not _all_ bad,” he said, wondering if he’d doomed himself yet again.  Seemed like it.  “I mean… would you rather be me?”

“God, no,” GLaDOS answered in something approaching disgust, which was all right.  “I can’t think of anything I’d want _less_.”

“Exactly, right?  Being me _sucks_.  Nobody’ll _ever_ put a hand on _you_ that you don’t want there.  People’re always kicking me, or throwing stuff at me, or putting stuff _on_ me.  Maybe you’re kinda down here where no one was ever supposed to see you, but… being on the other side isn’t that great.”

“So that begs the question,” GLaDOS said, and to his complete surprise he realised she’d _levelled_ herself with him.  She’d never done _that_ before!  “What’s in the middle?”

“I… I don’t know,” he said, finding it hard to talk suddenly.  “I guess it’d have to be… uh… whatever robots are when there’re no humans around.”

 _Man_ she was close.  He could feel the heat coming off her.  And it wasn’t _unpleasant_ – in fact, it was kinda comforting – but for some reason he hadn’t _expected_ that.  As though he’d thought she was gonna be as cold on the inside as she was on the outside.  Well, _seemed_ to be.  She wasn’t really _that bad_ , she was just… the thing she was _supposed_ to be.  Lofty.  Out of reach.

And now… she wasn’t.  Now she was _in_ reach.  And he’d been waiting for this for a _really_ long time but _now_ he didn’t know _what_ to do.  Oh, sure, he’d had a lot of thoughts about what he’d do when he got to this moment, but all of them had just _disappeared_ from his RAM all of a sudden.  And he didn’t even really know what those things had _been_ , but he _did_ know they’d all been wrong. 

He almost didn’t wanna touch her at _all_ anymore.  He felt kinda like… he shouldn’t.  Like she was supposed to stay up there and be perfect, and he was supposed to stay down here and be a fail.  That was just… how it was. 

But that was why she was right there in the _first_ place.  Because… because she wanted to meet him in the middle.  She didn’t know what that _was_ , and _he_ sure didn’t, but it wasn’t like anyone else was gonna roll up and _give_ them that answer.  GLaDOS was _really_ good at finding _those_ , but this one she couldn’t do by herself.  So he had to help her.  If _he_ wanted to know what the middle was, anyway.

And he did.  Because _she_ was there, and even though he _really_ didn’t like this situation or having to actually _do_ something that was scaring the crap out of him all of a sudden, he _did_ really like _her._   And she wasn’t gonna wait there all day.  He’d been waiting for the test, and here it was.  She was giving him his chance and he had to decide what the right thing to do with it was.

The hardest part about it all was that she was looking _right at him_ , and he was pretty sure he was overheating a little because this was stressing him out so much (which was _really_ embarrassing).  Her _eye_ was the size of his entire freaking body!  Okay.  The _assembly_ for it was.  But still.  It counted.  It was still unnerving the crap out of him.  And the smell of her from this close was _really_ distracting.  He wasn’t really sure what it was she smelled _like_ , other than that it was kind of… clean.  Everyone on Pandora was usually pretty dirty so they were always all sweaty and stuff, but there wasn’t any dirt here.  She also smelled kinda rusty, and he’d been wondering for a while how an indoor robot even _got_ rust on her, but it wasn’t too bad.  And it was easy to fix that, anyways.  If she ever _really_ let him touch her, he knew how to take care of it.

Which brought him back to the fact that she kinda _was_ letting him right now, and he wasn’t doing it.  _What’s it gonna be, Claptrap_ , he asked himself.  _You gonna do this thing or what_?

He decided to just… put his hand very softly along the side of her core, so that his thumb was against the front, at about the position her lens was at.  And that was it.  That was all he did.  That was all he _wanted_ to do.  And it was… it was really nice, actually.  The vibration from her brain went up his arm a little bit, and it kinda made him feel like she was more alive than he would ever be.  He could _hear_ her mind going at it, too, and she seemed to be more active at idle than he was when he was thinking really hard.  Man.  No _wonder_ she hadn’t let him touch her.  He shouldn’t really be doing it.  She could do _so_ much better.  He felt really ashamed, suddenly, of all the things he’d imagined doing to her before now.  It wasn’t really his _fault_ and if there’d been a way to get rid of the ridiculous urge he had to interface with almost every pretty girl he saw, he would’ve gotten _right_ on that.  And he did his best not to, or to keep it to himself, at least, but he still felt like… he hadn’t _done_ enough.  Like thinking of her that way made him the _worst_ person in the world.      

It was times like this that Claptrap felt really terrible about the reason he was even here in the first place, which was one hundred percent because the _second_ he’d seen her he’d started thinking about all the things he could do with a robot like _that_.  It was a really awful way to think about someone and he _knew_ that.  But sometimes he just… went ahead and did it.  Because what did it matter?  He usually never saw the girl again _anyway_!  What did it _matter_ if he had some not-so-nice thoughts about – okay, okay.  It _did_ matter, even if it was easier to try and pretend it didn’t sometimes.  But he’d spent so much time thinking about stuff like that because he’d thought it was the most he’d ever get, and now there was GLaDOS.  Who was _way more_ than his _wildest_ imagination.  Fooling around with her was always totally awesome but other than that?  He had _no idea_ how to treat her.  ‘Right’ was the _obvious_ answer, but what _was_ that?  And what about how _she_ was supposed to treat _him_?  What was _that_ supposed to be?  All of this was so _hard._ And he’d only really just started it.  _She_ wasn’t much help, either.  He was supposed to lead the way and all that, since he was the guy and whatever, but some _hints_ would’ve been nice.  Some kinda _real_ indications he wasn’t _totally_ messing all of this up.  He _did_ have his hand on her right now, but all this nervousness was kinda ruining it.  He didn’t even know if she was fine with what he was doing, because she hadn’t _said_ or _done_ anything!  She was just _staring_ at him all _motionless_ and the longer he stood there like that, the more it felt like he was doing something horribly wrong.   

He'd only had his hand there for about one minute but it _felt_ like he’d had it there for _hours_.  He brought it back down and GLaDOS moved away, but not that far and not really that _fast_ , either.  In fact, she seemed kinda… _satisfied._   So… had she not minded that?  Had she been cool with it?  Had she… had she _liked_ it?

God, she was so confusing.  But also really amazing at the same time.  Which was equal parts suckage and total awesome.  She was like a puzzle with about eighty solutions, but every single one of them was also very, very wrong.

“How are you at chess,” GLaDOS asked, and he was still a little caught up in all those thoughts having one entire hand on her had brought up so he didn’t process what she’d said for a good thirty seconds.

“Uh… terrible,” he answered.  He didn’t even know where his chess module _was_.  “I can do checkers.”

“Checkers it is,” she said, and from who _knew_ where produced a really nice black-and-white board that might’ve been made of glass.  He really wasn’t much better at checkers than he was at chess, so he actually stopped talking in order to play.  It took him like five minutes to figure out what he was supposed to do, which looked even worse than usual considering GLaDOS took like half a second to make all _her_ moves.  Either she was _super_ good at this game or he sucked worse than he thought he did.  Or both.  Probably both.  It was kinda making him feel bad, actually, since someone as smart as her should probably be playing with someone with a _much_ better brain than his, and after he’d spectacularly lost his eighth game in a row he said to himself,

“What _do_ you see in me, anyway.”

He really hadn’t meant her to hear, but she had, of course, because she was just _that_ awesome, and it made her laugh a little bit.  He looked up at her, which she pretended not to notice – he was _pretty_ sure she was pretending, anyway – and he tapped his left hand against that corner of the board. 

“You’re not gonna tell me, are you.”

“That wouldn’t be very much fun, now would it?” she said, with a really delightful false innocence.  _Gosh_ she got pretty cute, sometimes.

“ _Everything’s_ fun with you, babe.”

He hadn’t even realised what he’d said until she shook her core and told him, “Oh, stop that,” but thing was he really did mean it.  And besides.  He was _pretty_ sure she didn’t _actually_ want him to stop.  Sometimes she said something but meant the total opposite.  Which got really confusing.  He was figuring it out, though.

Eventually she said that was it because she had to go to sleep, and he was a little sad about it, but not really because of her.  Night was a sad and lonely time, that was all.  Maybe one day she’d let him stick around, though.  Maybe. 

She was already lying down by the time he got to the hallway, but she still _sounded_ awake so he called back, “GLaDOS?”

“Yes.”

“I’d uh…”  He was suddenly regretting this.  “I’d really like to hug you one day.”

When she didn’t say anything, he turned around so he could see her.  She was just… looking at him.  She hadn’t really gotten up.  She’d just tilted her core back enough that she could focus on him, and it made him wonder what life was like when your eye wasn’t stuck in one place like his.  But now wasn’t the time for that!  Now was the time to wonder if he’d pissed her off by saying he wanted to touch her again _already_.  It had only been like _three hours_.  But he couldn’t help it!  She was just so big and pretty and she smelled so nice and…

“I’d like you to do that one day,” GLaDOS said softly, and Claptrap was so shocked he almost believed his audio processing unit had just totally remixed what she’d _actually_ said into what he wanted to hear.  But no.  No, she’d _actually said that._

Wow.  So that meant he was actually doing this thing _right!_   Amazing!  “You have a good night, babe,” he said, waving to her, and she just told him goodnight so quietly he barely heard it.  But that was fine.  It was progress!  And he had _never_ expected to make so _much_ of it.

He didn’t think he’d feel _that_ sad and lonely tonight.  Besides!  She was usually only out for about six hours.  That wasn’t _that_ long!  Well, he’d have to leave her alone so she could work, probably, but if he was nice about it maybe she’d play checkers with him again.  Or something.  He wasn’t picky.  He just had to remember to take it easy with all of this.  She seemed to be taking her time to figure out what she wanted, exactly, and honestly?  He kinda was too. 

The only thing to do about _that_ was to keep working out how to meet her in the middle about stuff.  And that?  _That_ he was getting the hang of.

 

**Author’s note**

**Putting this mostly because whenever I say the robots can smell stuff someone asks me how that’s possible: Claptrap, GLaDOS, and Wheatley all mention they can smell.  I don’t know why someone decided that was necessary or where their olfactory units are.  They just can.**


	2. Part Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maybe she'll let him hug her this time! He's got a good reason...

**Part Two.**

**Synopsis: Maybe she’ll let him hug her this time.  He’s _got_ a good reason…**

 

 

 

Sometimes GLaDOS got sad.

Now, Claptrap got sad _all the time._ Like, constantly.  It was like… a weird feature or something.  But _he_ had _nothing_ on _her_. When _he_ got sad, he just cried for a while and then he was okay. Mostly.  But GLaDOS didn’t do that.  She just kinda… pretended she wasn’t sad.  It was _so easy_ to tell she was, though. She didn’t get mad at him more often, or tell him to talk less, or really _change_ all that much.  But you could just _feel_ it when she got sad. And it was _everywhere_ in the facility, because _she_ was everywhere, and really, it was kinda a downer.  He wasn’t gonna _complain_ about it.  That would be the _total_ wrong thing to do.  But he really wished he could just _ask_ her what was wrong and that she would just _tell_ him.  Because he knew if he did, she wouldn’t, and _then_ what.   _Then_ what did he do?  For now, he was just doing his best to pretend along with her. He wasn’t sure if he was _succeeding_ , but he was trying.  Kinda summed up their relationship, to be honest.

This time, though, was _really_ bad.  She was kinda making _him_ sad just to be near her, and that sucked.  He really, _really_ needed to do something about it before _he_ started getting all upset, because when _that_ happened he _really_ screwed things up.  So one afternoon where he thought he could handle it okay and also she hadn’t really said anything to him since yesterday or the day before, he said, “Babe, you wanna… tell me what’s going on?”

The way she looked at him kinda suggested she’d forgotten he was even there.  Which was typical.  Not with her, just in general.  He didn’t have much hope of her actually _answering_ the question, because she usually didn’t, so she _really_ took him by surprise when she said, “I had a friend once.”

Oh.  Okay.  Uh… what did he do _now?_  He’d totally expected her to just _ignore_ him.  “What… happened to them?”

“I sent her away,” GLaDOS said.  “I wasn’t very good to her.”

“Why not?”

She didn’t answer for long enough that it made him anxious.  Come to think of it, that was kinda a weird question to ask somebody.  Especially somebody you didn’t really know that well. He’d _like_ to know her better, she was just so hard to talk to sometimes. ‘cause she did stuff like this. Mentioned something and then refused to talk about it.  Why _do_ that if you didn’t wanna talk about it? Finally she said, without looking at him,

“It’s a long story.”

And that was bad news why? “I got nothin’ but time!”

That was when the _staring_ started and he had to try very hard not to back away from her.  He wasn’t sure where he was planning on _going_ , exactly, but someplace very far away would be good.  Back to Pandora probably wasn’t even far enough.  It really _sucked_ when she did this.

Something that was really tough about being her boyfriend was that he could never tell what she was thinking.  He, like most of his product line – and most people on Pandora in general – was pretty open with his thoughts.  Sometimes to the point of actually voicing every single one of them!  But GLaDOS… not only did she _not_ do that, she also didn’t _gesture_.  Probably because she didn’t have arms.  But that wasn’t the point.  The _point_ was that she was staring at him, and thinking, and he had no idea if they were bad thoughts or good ones.  When she did this scrutinising thing he really did start to wonder if having a brain that big was worth it.  Sure, it made you smarter, but if being smarter meant you had to think about every decision a zillion times, what was the point?

“You know what,” she said finally, long after he’d given up hope of an actual _answer_ this time, “all right.  Let’s do it.”

“Do… do what.”

“I’m going to tell you the story.”

Story?  What story?  Oh, right. The reason she’d sent the friend away she hadn’t been nice to.  It was a little weird that she’d need to tell a _story_ to explain that, but hey.  He had nothing better to do.

“And Claptrap.”

“Yeah?”

“I know your mind is prone to wandering, but do your best to pay attention.  I only want to go over it once.”

Oof.  Sounded like this story was made of pure suckage.  But okay.  He would do his absolute best! though what that happened to be today was yet to be known.  “You got it, babe.”

It wasn’t even that hard to pay attention, though, because the story was just plain _wild_.  And a little confusing, since she kept mentioning things he didn’t know anything about.  Like what the heck was an Intelligence Dampening Sphere?  For a minute he thought it must have been some sort of pill you took, like the kind that made parties better, but it turned out to be some kind of robot?  A stupid robot that was also kinda smart?  There was also something about neurotoxin, and a cake dispensary, and a turkey leg hanging on a rope from the ceiling, and he was having trouble following not because he wasn’t paying attention, but because none of it made any _sense_!   _Especially_ not the gun that shot holes!   _Without_ using bullets!  What sort of gun did _that_?  Rockets, yes.  Acid, yes. Swords?  Heck yeah!  But _holes_?

He was doing his best to not interrupt, he really was, but then she got to the part where the stupid-but-smart robot moved her into a potato, which really did sound like torture right there, and _then_ she said after the dumbass smashed her into a bottomless pit a _bird_ started _eating_ her.  Which was just the last straw.  Why would a _bird_ be noshing on a _computer_?

Oh.  Oh, right.  Wasn’t there some _other_ kind of potato?  It was something to do with French fries…  “Wait!  Wait. Are you talking about an _actual_ potato?  Like, the vegetable?”

“Is there another kind?”

“Well, sorta,” Claptrap said.  “On Pandora you call a really crappy computer a potato.  Y’know.  ‘cause it can’t _do_ anything.  Just sorta sits there.”

GLaDOS looked over at the wall.

“In that case,” she said solemnly, “I seem to be the most optimised piece of software in existence.”

Damn.  What a woman.

The story didn’t get any clearer after that, though.  There were a bunch of weird gels, and some hilarious dude that GLaDOS seemed particularly fond of, for some reason, and to top it all off she’d almost ended up on the moon. “Is he still up there?” Claptrap asked, having lost track of where the IDS had ended up.  She nodded once.

“As far as I know.  Unless some passing aliens decided to pick him up, which would be…”  She was looking up at the ceiling suddenly, and Claptrap checked it out himself but there was nothing there.  Other than the ceiling.  “Oh.”

“Huh?” Claptrap asked, feeling like he’d missed something.  Was she looking _through_ the ceiling?

“ _That_ is a story for another time.”

She had a story about _aliens_?  Well, okay. So did he.   _Lots_ of ‘em.  Also, maybe her story was just about him, since he was kinda an alien at the moment.  Did robots count as aliens?  Especially robots that were kinda just like variations on the robots they already had? When GLaDOS talked about computer stuff, he understood her just fine.  Was Earth a parallel version of Pandora?  Or was Pandora a parallel version of Earth!  Did that mean there were Vaults here too?  Wait.  She had said Earth was the only inhabited planet in this solar system.  On Pandora even the _moon_ was inhabited, so –

“Anyway,” GLaDOS was saying. “There you have it.”

Have… what?  He’d forgotten what they’d been talking about.

“It’s been one year to that day.”

To the day of… darn it! _That_ sure made him look good.  She’d actually told him something for once and he already didn’t remember what the _point_ of it had been.

“She’s probably dead by now,” GLaDOS said, subdued enough it kinda worried him.  “There’s not much out there and this place isn’t exactly _accessible_.”

Oh _right!_  Her _friend!_  Phew. He thanked his lucky stars for the fact that she’d kept talking.  “I don’t know, babe.  If there’s one thing I know about humans, it’s that they’re _super_ resilient.”

“The ones here really aren’t.”

Well, he didn’t actually _know_ any of them, so maybe she was right on that one.  Meant he’d almost run out of things to say about this, though.  “Well, if she’s alive and she ever comes back, I think you’ll get along great!” Claptrap declared.  “ _I_ think you’re a _great_ friend.”

She looked at him with her optic narrowed a little bit.  She didn’t believe him, huh.  Probably she’d figured out already that his opinion wasn’t worth that much.  In his defense, he wasn’t really programmed to dispense advice!  “Hey. Did you want a hug?”

She sighed in exasperation and turned away from him.  “Not _now_ , Claptrap.”

What?  What had he done _now?_  Ohhhhhh. Right.  He’d been bugging her about that.  “Not for me!” he protested.  “For you! It’s just something you do to help someone feel better!”

“That doesn’t even make any _sense_ ,” GLaDOS snapped. “What in the world is that even going to _achieve_?”

“It was just a suggestion! Yeesh.  I’m just trying to help.  Okay, sure!  I don’t know how!  But hey! I _am_ trying!”

“That’s true,” GLaDOS said after a moment.  “All right. I suppose it can’t make things _worse_.  What do I have to do, exactly?”

Wait, what?  She _wanted_ him to now?  He looked her up and down real quick.  Huh. How _was_ he gonna hug her?  She was just _way too big_.  The only part of her he could even _reach_ was her core, so… that was gonna have to do. “Just uh… just come down here enough that I can do it over your eye.”

So she did that, only she wasn’t far enough down and he was gonna have to give himself the extra few inches and hope he was able to keep from leaning on her.  He didn’t want to get his wheel on her face, but she _wasn’t_ giving him a lot to work with.  He didn’t know if she was being difficult or if she just thought he was taller than he actually was.  Probably both.  Then he imagined what taking a deep breath might sound like and just went for it.

It was just as nice as touching her had been, but times like _thirty_.  Having his arms full of beautiful warm supercomputer was _amazing_.  He was _such_ a lucky guy.  Oh, but wait!  This _wasn’t_ him getting lucky.  This was him _helping_. So he did his best to concentrate on helpful thoughts.  It was hard, but he was doing it.

She didn’t _have_ to be sad about her friend!  She’d come back one day!  Well, none of _his_ friends ever had, but she was so much _better_ than him that of course _her_ friend would.  She’d come back and then GLaDOS would have her friend, and maybe Claptrap could get a new friend too! and everything would be fine and okay because _friends!_

It wasn’t hard to tell when she wanted him to let go, even though _he_ really didn’t want to.  He _never_ got to hug anybody.  Probably because they were worried he’d start getting a little frisky on them, which he did, sometimes, but there wasn’t much he could do about _that_.  And it wasn’t like anyone was volunteering to _fix_ that little problem.  

“I didn’t expect that to help,” GLaDOS said after a moment.  “And you know what?”

It totally hadn’t.

“It did,” she answered herself, instantly skyrocketing his mood to wonderful heights.  “I’m not sure _why_ , but… it did.”

It was just about the worst time _ever_ for him to find that hilarious, and it was also too late for him to do much more than turn around and do his best to pretend he hadn’t found it funny.  Which probably wasn’t going to work.  Not only was GLaDOS _not_ deaf, she was definitely not stupid.

“Are you laughing because I said ‘but’,” GLaDOS said, and even though he _definitely_ was now he still said, “No,” as clearly as possible. Which was… not at all, because he was doing a _really_ bad job of not laughing.

“Are you three years old?”

“I could be,” Claptrap said, and she moved back enough that he guessed she hadn’t expected that answer. “It’s really hard to tell once you’ve been reset a few dozen times!  And anyway! It was funny!”

“No, it wasn’t.”

“Yeah!  It was!”

“It really wasn’t.”

“A little bit?”

“Maybe a little bit.”

He wouldn’t ask for more than that!  Especially since that could _totally_ have gone in a different direction.  Sometimes girls just kept getting mad about stuff like that.  

“Now,” GLaDOS said, “if you don’t mind shutting up for a while, I have a lot to think about.”

It was kinda ironic for her to say that, considering _she’d_ been doing all the talking.  He wasn’t gonna bring that up, though.  She’d let him hug her and he wasn’t gonna push it any farther than that.  “Very well!  I shall beat it for now.  But have no fear, because – “  He cut himself off because she had looked away from him suddenly, and he was pretty sure he knew _exactly_ why.

“You’re not allowed to laugh!  You said it wasn’t funny, remember!”

“It isn’t,” she said, very unconvincingly.  

“Suuuuure it’s not. That’s why you totally aren’t trying not to laugh because I said ‘but’ just now.”

“You’re always a little ridiculous, but you’re being particularly so right now.”

“That’s okay!” Claptrap said.  “I’d be _so bored_ if everything was all serious all the time.  It wouldn’t be any fun!”

“Fun,” GLaDOS echoed, in a distant kinda way, and when Claptrap looked up at her she’d turned away from him a little.

“Yeah. Fun.  What, you never heard of it?  They didn’t teach you that during ‘Mad Science for Lady Robots?’”

“No,” she said, as though she’d actually taken the question seriously, which… she did that sometimes.  And when she started doing _that_ , she was _definitely_ not in the mood to have him around.  Before he’d really gotten to the exit he heard her move and then she said, “Where are you going?”

“Uh…”  Where _was_ he going?  Oh, right. It wasn’t the _where_ that mattered, it was the _why._  “I was just gonna leave you be for a bit.  You said you were gonna think, remember?”

“All right,” was all she said to that, and it didn’t really make him any less confused but that was probably all he was gonna get.  “And… Claptrap.”

“Yeah?” he said, turning around.  Maybe she _didn’t_ want him to take off after all?  That’d be awesome!

“Thank you for the hug,” she told him, and she sounded so serious he was almost concerned. It wasn’t _that_ big a deal, was it?  “It was nice.”

He straightened himself as much as he could.  “Anytime, babe!  And I mean that _literally_.  Anytime.  I’m always up for that.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” she said, and he had to say if she decided to be serious about _that_ he would definitely _not_ argue about it.


	3. Part Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He probably shouldn’t have done that. Too late now…

**Part Three.**

**Synopsis: He probably shouldn’t have done that.  Too late now…**

 

 

Being allowed to hang out in GLaDOS’s chamber while she was asleep made him feel a _lot_ better.

She didn’t _do_ anything, obviously; she just hung there sleeping.  All _he_ was even doing was the same stuff he did while she was awake, like talk about whatever came to mind or fool around on the ECHONet.  More of the ‘Net, usually.  And she told him every day before she went to sleep not to touch her or else, except for the last eight days.  She had either decided he’d gotten the hint, or there was _another_ hint he wasn’t getting _at all_.  Because the only time he’d been allowed to touch her in like _three weeks_ now was had been when they were fooling around.  Which was weird!  She’d never let him do _that_ before.

The last time had been even _weirder_.  Not only had he gotten the usual strange sense of relief from her she seemed to have when they did it, but she also kinda just… sat there and let him hug her after.  He didn’t even remember _why_ he was doing that.  And he didn’t wanna ruin this good thing he had going, but still he decided he had to ask,

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah.”

Well, _that_ hadn’t told him what was up.  “Look, we uh… we don’t have to keep doing this.  If you don’t want to,” he’d told her, even though the mere thought of holding himself to that offer was like torture.  Seriously!  Having _that_ chassis in front of him all the time and _never_ being able to interface with it would have practically been a crime against robotkind!

“Hm?”

“You always seem kinda… _relieved_ that we’re done.”

“Oh,” GLaDOS had said, as though the thought had never occurred to her.  Which was wild!  “I am.  But not because of anything to do with you.”

Encouraging! but not helpful.  “And… the _reason_ is…”

But then she had moved away and said she was going to sleep, and that had been that.  And that had been four days ago.

He really didn’t want to wait another week or however long to be able to touch her again.  Especially since she hadn’t told him _not_ to.  Not recently, at least.  He didn’t wanna take advantage or anything!  Really!  He just wanted to cuddle her as much as possible!  And she didn’t even have to be _on_!  He wasn’t even asking to take up any of her _time_ to do it!  He was cool with just doing it while she was asleep!  She probably wouldn’t even _notice!_

Oh.  Oh, wait.  That was true.  She probably wouldn’t.  She’d never mentioned the fact that he talked to her at night, so she probably wasn’t conscious at all.  Not even a little bit.  It was really hard to tell with admin bots, since their task lists were more of a twenty-four-seven dealie, but she wasn’t the kind of person to keep quiet if he was doing something she didn’t like.  But she couldn’t dislike something she didn’t know was happening!

Would that count as being sneaky, though?  He already knew asking her direct questions was not the way to get an answer of any kind.  He just sorta had to ease into things and wait and see if she told him to stop.  Which he wouldn’t have to do for this, since she’d be totally asleep and not know about it at all.

Well, what did he have to lose?  He was just gonna go for it.  She probably wouldn’t even get that mad.  Probably.  She might.  Hopefully not mad enough to kick him out, though.  He _really_ liked living here.  Also, he _really_ liked her.  Which was why he just couldn’t bear to keep his hands off her!  And honestly it would be _weird_ if he _did_ want such a thing!  She was so _big_ and so _beautiful_ and it felt _so good_ to just put his arms around her as far as he could reach and just sit there and listen to all the noise her brain made as she went on thinking those smart thoughts of hers.  Ohhhh.  He shivered.  Okay, now he was _really_ gonna do it.  He could not go _another second_ without holding her again.  It’d be fine.  No big deal.  It was nothing at all to cuddle your girlfriend while she was sleeping even though she hadn’t actually told you it was okay to do that.  Probably everyone else did it all the time and he was late to the game.  Which… wasn’t unusual, actually.

“Okay,” he said to himself, looking at her and thinking over how he wanted to do this.  It was gonna have to be from the side, since he couldn’t really move that much from the front and he could never be sure how long he could stay still for.  So he went up to her left side and he very, very carefully put his right arm along the part of her core where the ceramic fit into the rail that let her shift it up and down.  Then he stayed very still and listened as hard as he could.

Nothing. 

Good!  Exactly what he’d been hoping for.  When he thought he’d calmed himself down again he very slowly positioned his chassis as close to her as possible, which also went very well, and then he finally (again very slowly!) put his other arm up against the front of her core.  He did remember she didn’t like having her optic assembly touched _at all_ , so he put his arm up a little higher just in case he stopped paying attention and it slipped.  She would _definitely_ be mad if he punched her in the eye, even if it _was_ by mistake.

He was so nervous about the whole thing that he didn’t really get to _enjoy_ it for the first ten minutes, but after that?  Totally worth it. 

He was never gonna feel lonely at night again.

 

//

 

Every day he waited about twenty minutes to make sure she’d gone to sleep, and then he’d go up to her and put his arms around her real slow.  Sometimes he wouldn’t talk or watch TV or even do anything, because the feel of her was just so darn nice.  He’d just sit there and think about what it must be like to be a construct like her.  Though… he never really came to the conclusion it was a _nice_ life.  She didn’t have any friends and she never really seemed to have _fun_.  It seemed like being smart enough to be admin just… sucked.  Because then they gave you all this _work_ to do, and if you _didn’t_ have any work you just started going stir-crazy!  Even if he’d been good at it, Claptrap didn’t really like working.  It was a lot more fun to just mess around and do what he wanted.  But GLaDOS couldn’t do that.  Well, she could.  But not for very long.  She had too much work to do.

At times where he was thinking stuff like that, he hugged her a little tighter and wished she’d open up to him a little more.  Gosh, he liked her a lot.  It sure would be cool to know if doing this was okay or if he was just being a total asshole.  Claptrap was a pretty nice guy, compared to everybody _else_ on Pandora, but in a world where everyone was kinda a jerk he was _also_ bound to be a jerk like fifty percent of the time.

He did this every day for a week or two and it always seemed to go fine.  He already knew by now when she was waking up by the sound of it – ‘cause it was _loud_ – and he _usually_ got off her with plenty of time to spare.  But then there was this time he forgot what he was doing because he was watching a movie about a dog that could play basketball, and it was just _so_ _amazing_ that he didn’t realise he’d lost track of time until he seemed to have gotten a lot warmer and noisier all of a sudden.  _That_ was certainly weird, since he wasn’t, like, _thinking_ or anything, and while he was trying to puzzle _that_ out he suddenly remembered just who he was hanging onto.

Ohhhhh s***.  Oh s*** s*** s***.  How was he gonna explain his way out of _this_?  He veeeeeery slowly extracted himself from her core, backed away about three feet, and then… nothing.  She didn’t do anything.  She didn’t yell at him, or sigh in annoyance, or even actually _move_.  He wasn’t sure what to do.  Was he in trouble?  Was she thinking about how much trouble he was in?  Was she gonna kill him?  Or, worse, kick him out?

“Good morning,” he said, in an attempt to be casual, but considering his voice came out kinda high-pitched it was unlikely he was even one percent convincing.  Aw, hell. 

She still didn’t move.  Well.  Onto the hard question.

“Are you mad?”

She didn’t say anything, and because he was himself he felt the need to fill the silence with _something_.  “Look, I _know_ I shouldn’t’ve been doing that.  And I… I’m sorry I didn’t ask first, but I thought you’d say no!  And I mean, you’re my girlfriend!  And I never get to hold you!  That’s kinda a _thing_ I’m supposed to be able to do!  Maybe not _all_ the time, but not _never_!  So I figured, hey!  She’s asleep, and I’m _not_ asleep, so we can _both_ have what we want!  So yeah!  When you go to sleep at night I come up and cuddle with ya until you get up.  I really like it.  A lot.  I’m not doing anything else, I swear.  I’m really not.  It’s okay if you’re mad.  I shoulda asked first.”  He spread his hands helplessly, since she was giving him literally _nothing_ to work with here. 

“I’m not mad,” GLaDOS said unexpectedly.  “I knew about it the whole time.”

Wait.  _What_?  She’d known _the entire time_ and she’d just… _let him?_ Without saying or doing _anything_?  He felt like that had to mean _something_.  Okay, okay.  She’d known about it and instead of telling him to get lost, she’d just let it go on.  And she’d done _that_ because…

Oh.  Oh, wait a minute.

“GLaDOS,” Claptrap said, “do you like it when I hold you?”

She was quiet for so long he thought he wasn’t gonna get an answer out of her, but then she said,

“I don’t know.”

That was when he was suddenly reminded of something he usually forgot about her: that he was kinda the only person she knew.

How _would_ she know if she liked being hugged or not?  It wasn’t like she had _arms_.  She was also _really_ big.  That wasn’t a problem for him, of course, but it _could_ be a bit of a hitch in the hugs department.  And even _if_ she’d known other people, she’d probably had a lot of crappy experiences with people touching her.  He didn’t quite know what they had _been_ , but he didn’t need the deets to know what humans liked to do with robots.  Every time they got their hands on one they started –

Ohhhhhh.  _Now_ he got it.  Now he got what _aaaaaall_ of this was about.  It had absolutely _nothing_ to do with him at all!  For once.  He was just the _first person_ she was letting touch her in like _ten years_.  She was very, very slowly giving him her trust.  And he actually seemed to be _earning_ it!  All of this was doing wonders for his self-esteem, actually.  Wait!  He was supposed to be doing something.  What was it again?  Oh yeah!  GLaDOS.  He’d asked if she liked being held and she’d said she didn’t know.  And then he’d kinda spazzed.  Okay.  Uh… hm.  Did he keep talking about it?  She didn’t usually like talking about stuff.  Soooooo… subject change!  But what to?  Hm.  This was kinda _hard_ …

“Hey, you wanna see some parking fails?”

“Some what?”

So he got out one of his playlists – which he had a lot of, mostly for making himself better when he did something stupid – and that actually did cheer her up.  Awesome!  Even _more_ awesome was the part where she slowly put herself right next to him and he got to hold her again.  But casually.  And nicely.  So she’d have lots of time to tell him to piss off.  And when he did back off because she told him she had work to do, she said,

“You seem to like doing that.”

Was that a trick or something?  Of course he did!  “Uh… yeah?”

“You can keep doing it.  If you really enjoy it that much.”

Ohhhh.  She was doing that thing where she wanted him to do something, but she was pretending it was because _he_ wanted to do it.  Which he did.  But whatever helped her out, right?  “I have no problem with that!”

So later that night, after she was done the stuff she did all day, he went back to holding her and she did… whatever she did before sleeping.  He tried to think of just how to keep this whole thing from bothering her.  Because he would _love_ to do it _every day_.  Well, with her _wanting_ him to do it.  It was nicer like that.  She just felt _so good_ to hold like this.  Even if he sometimes wished his arms were a little longer so he could _really_ do it right.

“Sweet dreams, beautiful,” he said, not really in a _whisper_ but sorta quietly, anyway, and after a moment she did this… thing.  He wasn’t sure what to call it.  She kinda pushed her core into him a little bit, like… like a cat did when it wanted your attention, and… well, he liked it.  It was really cute.  It would be really great if she did it again sometime.  Like, a lot.  Okay, maybe not too much.  Then it wouldn’t be special anymore.  Or maybe it still would be.  ‘cause _she_ was so special.

Oh geez.  This was getting a little more serious than he’d thought it was gonna be. 

“Goodnight, funnychips,” she said, so quietly he almost didn’t hear it because her operations were louder than her voice.  And he _almost_ started jumping up and down, he was so excited to hear that, but he realised that wouldn’t be the best decision and hugged her extra hard for a minute instead.

This was _totally_ getting super serious.  He’d never gotten _that_ far before and if he wasn’t careful it would be _way_ worse to lose something like this than to just be told to get lost off the bat like usual.  He wasn’t sure _how_ to be careful, exactly, but he was gonna try.


	4. Part Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s almost better when GLaDOS DOESN’T try to be nice.

He’d gone home last week and it had been a  _ bad _ idea.

He’d known it was a bad idea before he’d even done it, but heading cheerfully towards his own destruction was kinda his thing.  So, he’d done it anyway. And now he was sad. What he really,  _ really _ wanted to do was go to GLaDOS and see if she could make him feel better.  He hadn’t even tried it, though. He was pretty sure she didn’t know how to do that sort of thing.  She didn’t even know what to do when  _ she _ was sad!  So he’d been kinda… avoiding her a little bit.  Kinda. He couldn’t really  _ not _ be around her, since he’d obviously been trying to get closer and closer since the day he’d  _ arrived _ there, but he wasn’t like… trying to touch her or anything like that.  He wasn’t even really  _ talking _ that much.  And of course she’d  _ noticed _ , but she hadn’t really  _ done _ anything.  She just kinda kept giving him this  _ look _ .  He was actually totally surprised when, on his third day back, she asked, “Claptrap.  What’s going on?”

“Nothin’,” he said, even though you didn’t have to be a super genius to tell that was a really bad lie.  “I’m good.”

“You aren’t ‘good’,” GLaDOS insisted.  “What happened back home?”

He stared at her for like two minutes before he realised he had to  _ answer _ the question.  “How did you know?” he asked, totally shocked.

“Oh, come on,” GLaDOS said, sounding extremely insulted.  “You were fine before you left and now you’re all  _ mopey. _   You don’t have to be a genius to work out what happened in the middle.”

Oh.  Well.   _ He _ wouldn’t have.  He shrugged, wondering if there was still a way out of this.  “People are just… mean to me there. That’s all. No biggie.”

“Then why did you go to see them?”

“Because they’re my friends.”

“Excuse me,” said GLaDOS in disbelief.  “Your  _ friends _ are  _ mean _ to you?”

He knew he was gonna catch it for saying this, but it was the only thing he could think of.  “Well… you’re my  _ girlfriend _ and  _ you’re _ mean to me.  Soooo… yeah. They’re my friends.  Even though they’re all jerkbags.”

It hit him that he sounded kinda like a whiny three-year-old.  He was  _ definitely _ older than that, though by how much was anyone’s guess.  He  _ had  _ a birthday, but it was totally made up.  Come to think of it, how old was GLaDOS? Should he have asked that before they’d started all this?  Oh, but girls didn’t like talking about their age…

“Am I?”

He had to remind himself he was in the middle of a conversation.  “Are you what?”

“Mean to you.”

He had  _ no idea _ how to answer that!  Was it a  _ trick _ question?  Was he not  _ really _ supposed to answer it?  Or was she  _ seriously _ asking?  “Uh… yeah?”

“When?”

He stared up at her for a minute, trying to figure out what, exactly, was going on here.  “Like… every day?”

Her optic narrowed, which was usually when he needed to start being nervous.  “That’s ridiculous. I am  _ not _ mean to you  _ every day _ .”

“Yes!  You are!  There’s not a single day goes by that you’re not!  You were  _ yesterday _ !”

She leaned in closer, almost seeming to squint at him.  “Name  _ one _ thing I did yesterday.”

“You said, and I quote, ‘If it had been up to me, you  _ and _ everyone at quality control who allowed you to roll off the assembly line in one piece the day you were deemed adequately functional would have been terminated.  Permanently.’”

“Yes,” GLaDOS said, “and your response was, ‘You say that like a person who thinks Hyperion  _ has _ quality control’.  What, exactly, in that sentence indicates you were  _ bothered _ by what I said?”

He drew up his chassis and held up one hand in order to protest, thought it over, and realised he had nothing to say.  Because she was right. Again. Yeah, what she’d said  _ had _ been pretty mean, but… no.  He’d just said what  _ he’d  _ said and that was it.  He slumped back down again.  Man. He was so used to getting beat on that he waved it off when his  _ girlfriend _ started tearing him down.  That was pretty depressing. He couldn’t even argue that she just should’ve known better, because he already knew he was almost the only friend she’d ever had.  She  _ didn’t _ know better, because he’d never  _ told _ her.  And he’d never  _ told _ her because… 

Now he was thinking about it, he just plain didn’t want to know if she’d just pretend he’d never said anything.  Nobody  _ else _ had ever cared about this kind of thing.   _ Maybe  _ she would.   _ Maybe _ , if he asked or if he kinda nudged her in the right direction sometimes, she’d actually be  _ nice _ to him!

That was so stupid he almost laughed.  Nice to him. Sure. Right. And maybe tomorrow it’d turn out he could climb stairs or that he’d had fingers all this time.

“Has your mind wandered away from you again?”

Sorta, to be honest.  “Um… yeah. Yeah, I was kinda… bothered by that.  It’s just… easier to blow stuff off, you know?”

“That doesn’t really solve the problem of why you expect me to be  _ clairvoyant _ about your feelings.”

“I don’t,” he mumbled at the floor, not able to keep from clenching his hands together.  “I just… expect you not to care.”

“I don’t,” GLaDOS told him bluntly.  “Most of the time, anyway. Occasionally there’s a momentary blip in the trend, but it rarely lasts very long.”

Yep.  Sounded about right.

“However,” GLaDOS continued, “you  _ should _ appreciate the fact that I care enough to  _ pretend _ that I care.”

Claptrap looked up at her.  “I’m gonna need a minute on that one,” he admitted.  “You care but you also don’t at the same time? How’s that even work?”

GLaDOS tilted her core thoughtfully, and even though he was a bit upset he still managed to find that super cute.  “It’s the difference,” she said finally, “between  _ actively _ and  _ passively  _ caring.”

He folded up his arms in an attempt to figure that one out.  “So… you care about my feelings as long as you don’t have to  _ do _ anything about them?”

“Basically.”

“And that means,” Claptrap thought out loud, “that you’re cool with me  _ telling _ you about ‘em, but not with me asking you to fix ‘em?”

“That would depend on whether I felt like it or not,” GLaDOS said.  “Fixing them, I mean. A lot of your issues seem to be psychological, and we all know that psychology isn’t Science.”

Claptrap, in fact, did  _ not _ know that –  _ damn _ she was smart – but he forced himself back onto the subject at hand.  Now wasn’t the time to get distracted! “What… what if I don’t want you to  _ fix _ anything, but a  _ little _ bit of like…  _ effort _ would be good.  What would you do then?”

“I suppose that would depend on what you defined as ‘a little bit of effort’.”

He didn’t even have to  _ think _ about the answer to that one, but actually  _ saying  _ it… he probably shouldn’t do that.  He should probably just drop this right now.  She didn’t care, anyway. She’d said so!

Well… no.  Not exactly.  She cared enough to  _ pretend _ she cared.  Even when she didn’t.  And she  _ probably _ did a little more than she was cool with admitting to.  That was a  _ thing _ she did.  Just fake that something wasn’t as big of a deal as it really was.  He still didn’t know  _ why _ – wait.  That actually wasn’t important right now.  What was  _ important _ was that he really,  _ really _ wanted a hug.  But how was he supposed to know if she thought that was ‘a little bit of effort’ or not?  Other than asking. That was always what it came down to, huh? Having to stare down the barrel of the question and hope the bullet that came out of it wasn’t the dreaded ‘why the hell would I do that, you desperate loser?’, accompanied by scornful laughter.  

Man.  He’d shamelessly asked so many people – a lot of them  _ total strangers  _ – for so many things all his entire life and never hesitated for a second, but asking his girlfriend for  _ anything whatsoever? _   Borderline impossible!  How did she do it?

“Uh…,” he said, when he remembered he’d kinda been standing there in silence for a while, “so you remember when… y’know… you were sad about your friend?”

“Yes.”

“And I… kinda helped you out with that?”

“Yes, I remember.”

She wasn’t getting the hint.  He couldn’t tell whether it was  _ on purpose _ or not.  She hadn’t really  _ moved _ at all so it wasn’t like she was giving  _ him _ any hints.  Oh, crap. He was hoping she’d get it without him really having to  _ ask _ …

“Oh,” said GLaDOS suddenly.  “It’s a  _ hug _ you want, isn’t it.”

He was almost relieved.  Almost. It was kinda cancelled out by the overwhelming terror he was feeling at the realisation that he really,  _ really _ didn’t want to know if the answer was no.  Because now that she’d, like, actually  _ said it _ , he was probably going to die if she didn’t want to.  He didn’t actually  _ know _ anybody who’d died because they hadn’t gotten a hug, but hey!  There was a first time for everything! And if that was  _ ever _ gonna happen to  _ anybody,  _ a guy could place  _ bets _ on it happening to  _ him _ .

“You’re too far away,” GLaDOS said.

“Huh?”  Too far away for what?

GLaDOS sighed, which was how he knew he’d  _ really _ started to annoy her.  Because she didn’t need to breathe.  So sighing wasn’t an  _ automatic _ thing, like it was for meatbags.  She did it on purpose so that he –

Man.  He just could not focus for  _ two seconds _ , could he?  But that thought just made him even more sad than he already was, and honestly he was being so stupid about it that he didn’t  _ deserve _ a hug.  He was just gonna leave now.  Yeah. He was just gonna do that.

“I honestly can’t tell if you  _ want _ a hug or not,” said GLaDOS.  “Context implies you do, but –“

“I do!” Claptrap said without thinking, whirling around to face her.  Wow. He hadn’t even realised he’d turned away.  

“You aren’t  _ behaving _ as though you do.”

“No, I do!” he insisted, and that was when he just went for it.  No chance to talk himself out of it this time! Just…  _ swooped _ right in.

He hadn’t actually thought about  _ how _ she was gonna hug him, and he worried about that for about one second.  He didn’t have time to worry about it longer than that because that was when she started pressing  _ her entire eye _ into the side of his chassis.  Man, she was  _ really _ strong.  That whole shebang must have been  _ super _ heavy for her motor to have been built to output  _ this _ much force.  

Oof.  And it was a  _ good _ hug, too.  Like,  _ really _ good.  So good he kinda felt better but he  _ also _ kinda felt like he should just start talking ‘cause there was a  _ lot _ he could say that he could just get out real quick, maybe, if she let him, and – no!  No, he couldn’t! That was a  _ big _ no because even  _ thinking _ about any of that just made him  _ more _ sad and… oh boy.  Oh boy oh boy oh boy.

He jumped off of her and turned around as fast as he could.  He was  _ not _ gonna cry on her.  There was  _ no way _ he was doing that.  Even if she woulda  _ let  _ him, he wasn’t doing it.  That was just too much.  

“Claptrap?”

Great.  Just  _ great _ .   _ Now _ she was gonna think  _ he _ thought her hugs sucked.  And he didn’t! It was the best one he’d  _ ever had _ !  Also one of the only ones.  But that meant she wasn’t gonna try and  _ give _ him any more and that just made him  _ even more sad _ than he’d been to begin with!

“I’m okay,” he said, but more to the floor than to her.  “I just… I needed a minute.”

“Look.  I’ll be honest with you.  I have no idea which action I need to take here.  So if you want me to do something – or  _ stop _ doing something – you’re going to have to come right out and tell me.  I’m not going to be able to guess.”

Oh geez, she was trying to be  _ nice _ .  And worse, it was  _ working _ .

“The hug was good,” he said in a small voice, fitting and unfitting his hands together.  

“Then why did you go over there?  You  _ are _ aware that I can’t  _ chase _ you, right?”

Ohhhh, he wanted that hug  _ real _ bad.  But he had to wait until he  _ knew _ he wasn’t gonna cry!  He could go cry later, but not  _ now _ !  Not when she was  _ helping _ !  He bounced up and down, waving his hands in front of him.  

“What are you  _ doing _ ?”

“Nothing!” he said quickly, wanting to move as faaaaar away from the topic of crying as possible.  “I’m coming!”

Ohhhhh, it was nice.  It was so, so nice. He realised he didn’t even care she couldn’t hug him from both sides.  Literally everything else about the hug made up for it. She was so  _ big _ and  _ warm _ and  _ strong _ and –

“You don’t have to go back there,” she murmured, and it felt really nice the way her voice kinda resonated inside of his chassis.

“It’s my home,” he said, even though he knew she wouldn’t get it.  “And they’re my friends.”

“Do you know what your biggest flaw is, Claptrap?”

“… everything?” he asked, confused.  As far as  _ he _ knew, he was nothing  _ but _ flaws.

“Not quite,” GLaDOS said, and pulled back just hard enough to get him off of her.  “It’s your lack of self-respect. Most people have at least an ounce or two. But you…”  She shook her core gravely. “ _ You _ don’t have  _ any _ .  At  _ all. _ ”

Okay.  Well. She didn’t need to  _ point it out _ like that.

“Which leads me to wonder,” GLaDOS mused, looking away from him, “if everyone on Pandora  _ truly _ hates you, or if you merely suffer from an extremely severe case of confirmation bias.”

“Um… what?”

“Confirmation bias is when you gather and interpret information in such a way that it proves what you already believe,” explained GLaDOS, and to his surprise she wasn’t even sassy about it.  “In your case, you believe yourself to be worthless and a waste of time; therefore, you seek out and surround yourself with people who not only seemingly prove that to you, but discourage you from thinking any different.”

For what must’ve been the first time  _ ever _ , Claptrap didn’t know what to say.  It sounded  _ stupid _ .  Who would  _ do _ that?  Who would decide to just… give up on themselves, and then  _ look _ for people who would happily keep kicking them when they were down?  At the very  _ least _ wouldn’t they like…  _ ditch _ the people that made them feel bad?

He couldn’t do that, though.  Then he would have  _ no _ friends instead of just terrible ones.  And self-respect wasn’t a good enough trade for being lonely.

Was it?

“I would rather live one thousand years and every single one of those days alone,” GLaDOS said, because she’d somehow managed to read his mind again, “then lose an iota of my own dignity.   _ Especially _ for people who would be  _ happy _ if I were dead.”

He almost asked, all in a rush, ‘Would  _ you _ be happy if I was dead?’, but stopped himself in time.  Even if the answer was no, that wasn’t really what she was talking about.  She was talking about something that you didn’t get from  _ other _ people.  You got it from  _ yourself _ .  It was a  _ gift _ to yourself, because it… because it stopped you from…

From doing the kinda stuff he did.

“I have some,” he felt the need to tell her.  “It’s not  _ zero _ .  Not a whole lot  _ more _ than that, but… not zero.”  She didn’t need to know that it almost had been.  Or she didn’t need to know until later, anyway.

“You’re not going to improve it any by hanging out with  _ those _ people.”

No he was  _ not _ .  But it’d have to wait.  He could only take so much self-reflection at once.  Before it spiralled into self-loathing, anyway. “GLaDOS?” he asked.

“What.”

“How’d you get so smart?”

“I do a lot of thinking,” she said, again very seriously.  “The trick is coming up with multiple ways to approach the same subject and, in doing so, preventing yourself from dismissing those alternate viewpoints offhand.  That part can get a bit complex. This is where confirmation bias comes into play again: you want to ignore these new ideas because they don’t verify what you already believe.  But you can’t. Everything must be weighted equally.”

He  _ thought _ he understood all of that.  It sounded like something he’d never even  _ tried _ .  Well.  Maybe once or twice, a long time ago.  He  _ also _ did a lot of thinking, but not about deep stuff like that.  He’d have to give it a try! Who knew? Maybe it would even  _ work _ !

“You know,” GLaDOS said, “for a moment there I thought you were going to ask if  _ I _ would be happy if you were dead.  But you didn’t. Which tells me you really  _ were _ listening.  Congratulations.  The bar was low, but you managed to stumble over it.”

“ _ Would _ you be?” he couldn’t help himself from asking.  She narrowed her optic in his direction.

“Really?”

“ _ You _ brought it up!” protested Claptrap.  “It’s almost like you  _ wanted _ me to ask!”

She just turned away from him without answering.  Which meant that the answer was… no. The answer was no!  ‘cause if it was yes she woulda had a  _ whole _ spiel to go along with it!  But she didn’t wanna actually  _ say _ no ‘cause… uh…

Ooh!  It was ‘cause it would be, like,  _ proof _ that she  _ cared _ .  He perked up suddenly.

It was that thing she’d just said!  Confirmation bias! Oho, he had her now.  She  _ believed _ she didn’t care, so she only  _ did _ things to ‘prove’ that she didn’t!  Amazing! He’d  _ learned _ something today!

Two things, actually.  

“Babe, you’re amazing,” he told her.  She looked over at him almost offhandedly, like she’d managed to forget he was there.

“I know,” she said, with an extremely sexy self-assurance that he was very into and definitely wanted to have for himself.  And he would! One day. Not today. Not tomorrow. Probably not the day after that, either. But one day.  

“Also,” he said, hoping he wasn’t going too far with this one, “if the uh…  _ passing whim _ to be nice to me ever struck ya again, it’d be cool if you… y’know…  _ indulged _ it.”

She looked at him silently for so long he started backing out of the room, just the tiniest, tiniest bit, but then she finally said, 

“I’ll think about it.”

It looked like the ol’ confirmation bias was about to take a  _ big _ hit.  For both of them.  Terrifying, but also… kinda exciting!  Who  _ knew _ what he could accomplish if he liked himself, and while knowing somebody  _ else _ liked him on top of that!  Man! He’d be  _ unstoppable _ .  Just like GLaDOS was unstoppable.

He might not respect himself, but he sure respected  _ her _ a hell of a lot.  And that seemed like a pretty good place to start.


End file.
